The Door Knob Fixer

Posted on June 27, 2013 by Pamela

I thought I had an ongoing tale about the door knob but I can’t find it using search. Oh well, it’s so interesting I’m sure you won’t mind hearing it again.

Our front door knob started disintegrating awhile back and co-worker said door knobs are super easy to do yourself so I decided to try.

I stopped by the lock shop to ask a few questions and the nice man told me to bring it in. I figured out how to take it off and I put all the pieces in a box and drove back to the lock shop.

The nice man said I could probably get by without a whole new door knob and he sold me a widget. (Latch? Hasp? Shackle?) I went home installed the widget and put the door knob back on and couldn’t get the door to close.

These all sound like simple steps when I write it this way but they actually involved having to look for tools and wrestle to make the tools work and get the screws in the right way. Plus I had other things I wanted to do with my day besides drive back and forth with a shoe box filled with door knob parts.

I called the nice man and begged him to come down and fix it. At that point I would rather have paid money than deal with it one more second. He said it sounded like I had the bevel hackle knuckle upside down and to just turn it around. So I took it all apart again and spring bolted the tumbler around and he was right it worked!

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago and the door knob disintegrated again. My husband, who is a prince but is perfectly happy to leave problems like this to deal with later if there is an acceptable alternative, thought we should just not use the front door until we got around to dealing with it. I did not find that an acceptable alternative. However, I also didn’t want to be in charge of calling the locksmith since I had already handled round one of this problem.

Then, during one long night of insomnia I remembered that we have the same door knob on the door between the garage and the shop — a door that we never lock. When I had time I swapped the doorknobs. Genius.

Except that didn’t work either because the widget part was still stuck — where this entire problem started — so one more time I had to go back, take both door knobs off, swap the widgets putting the new widget back on the front door and putting the craptastic old widget in the garage.

In sum, front door locks again and I know how to deal with basic door knob repair.

Posted in doing it wrong, home improvement, the shop | 2 Comments

Great Match Day

Posted on June 23, 2013 by Pamela

Ticket partner was selected for Deal or No Deal at the half so we got to go onto the field at the end of the first half. We got to watch about 5 minutes of the game from the sideline. They scored a goal while we were down there.

He had to pick a suitcase and could win between $25 and $1000 dollars.

Jumbotron! He won $300.

And after we won there was this.

Posted in TIMBERS! | 3 Comments

The Story of the Scary Man

Posted on June 19, 2013 by Pamela

I have a note here that says “scrunchie.” What could I possibly have intended to write about scrunchies? Too bad the moment is gone.

I write stuff out and save it in draft and then later when I look at it, I can’t imagine why I thought I wanted to write about it.

For example, a couple of weeks ago a sketchy man followed me downtown.

I have run into all kinds of strange and interesting people, not just here but other places I’ve been, and this was the first time a person scared me.

I originally wrote out the sequence of events but I don’t think that’s very interesting now.

What is more interesting to me is that I felt bad about it afterward. I don’t want to be that person that freaks out because a stranger, who clearly has problems, talked to me.

But I also decided that you have to trust your gut. This man was aggressive and deep in my personal space. Also, his face was banged up so it was reasonable to assume he was capable of violence.

In the end, nothing bad happened. I ran into my office building and he wandered off to bother someone else.

Posted in doing it wrong | 1 Comment

Garden Update

Posted on June 17, 2013 by Pamela

Big pink dahlias. These are massive and droopy. Even staking doesn’t seem to help.

I think I’m going to have someone help me make a better trellis. I can’t find a sample photo right now but I want them to be able to grow up more.

Smaller dahlia.

Peas, detail shot.

Half of the tomato plants. When I was buying plants they had this one variety that was grown specially to be healthy. What a relief after all the unhealthy tomatoes we’ve got in the world. It made me mad. I didn’t buy that kind.

Beets! I love beets and didn’t get any last year. Not a problem now.

Posted in garden | 1 Comment

You Can Dance Right Through Your Life

Posted on June 14, 2013 by Pamela

Amazing sky last night

I’ve had this post started for a week. I hope finally posting it will cure my What A Feeling! earworm.

I pick up the bus downtown in front of a nice restaurant.

Several months ago I saw a group of women arrive at the restaurant all dressed in off-the-shoulder t-shirt dresses and tights with leg-warmers and heels.

I went up to them and said, “I recognize the look, what’s the occasion?”

It turns out there is a musical of Flashdance.

Flashdance came out when I was a freshman in college. I sent a note to my college friends about it and we took a guffawing stroll down memory lane.

I dug around in the archives and found the DVD and I decided to watch it last weekend.

Wow. What a terrible movie. I don’t think I’ve seen it since it originally came out.

My recollection is that I liked the movie and the dancing and the music. I admired the protagonist because she was so pretty and confident and thin. And she was following her dreams!

Upon my most recent viewing I thought she was an idiot and the dancing was mostly awful. What was her boss thinking carrying on with an 18 year old? Coincidentally I turned on a crime show and there was a guest star that looked strangely familiar and I realized it was the actor who played the boss.

The movie is just a series of music videos barely held together with a dumb story about a girl who’s welder by day, exotic dancer by night, but her dream is to join a professional dance company. All the women had to do everything wearing a leotard cut up to her hip bones. Even the ice skater.

Very entertaining in a purely nostalgic way.

To conclude, I leave you with some of the poetry of the songtrack:

Locking rhythms to the beat of her heart, changing woman into life
She has danced into the danger zone, when the dancer becomes the dance!

It can cut you like a knife, if the gift becomes a fire!
On a wire between will and what will be!

Posted in doing it wrong | Tagged | 1 Comment

Grab That Cash With Both Hands

Posted on June 11, 2013 by Pamela

First of all, when I saved this recipe for stuffed poblano peppers with cashew chipotle sauce I figured I would most likely never get around to trying it. However, we had company this weekend and I gave it a shot and I am here to report that it is terrific and worth the effort. If nothing else just make the sauce and heed the commenters who warn that three chipotles in adobo are very spicy. I just used one. You could also make your life easier and mix a big can of roasted chiles with the rice and pour the sauce over it.

– – –

At the freeway off-ramp where the bus gets off to go to the park-n-ride there is almost always the same couple holding up a sign asking for money. They are young, maybe 20. I tend to frown at them because they have cigarettes and fast food and leave all their trash around.

The other day there was a regular looking woman standing at the off-ramp in the grime and exhaust wearing nice clothes and sandals. She looked like your friendly neighbor who always says hello when she’s out walking her golden retrievers.

She held a sign that said: Don’t give my kids money for heroin.

It breaks my heart to think of all the terrible things that have happened to motivate her to do that.

Posted in cooking, doing it wrong | 2 Comments

Running Through the Pole Beans

Posted on June 9, 2013 by Pamela

I remember writing this ages ago but I guess I never posted it. You can tell it’s old because the tulips are long gone.

I had this endless daily writing streak going that finally ended. It started on October 31, 2011 and it ended on March 26.

To be honest, I wasn’t completely happy about the streak. I tend to operate in life with a bunch of rules so that I don’t end up sitting on the couch eating bags of cookies and just passing the time. But I think absolute rules are unhealthy. Things should always be flexible. I don’t like to be lazy but I don’t have to exercise every day. I feel unproductive if I don’t get up early but it’s okay to sleep in sometimes. I prefer to eat healthful things but a day of drinking chai and eating Cadbury eggs is perfectly acceptable. I like to keep my house in order but I have, maybe one time, gone to bed with dirty dishes still in the sink.

So getting back to the streak, I had intended to end it mindfully rather than just deciding one day that I didn’t feel like writing. Except that I was afraid if I ended it, then I would find more excuses for not doing it. Writing has been something of a grind for the past nine months or so and I’ve tried a number of approaches to get back into it which have mostly failed. I felt the streak was the only thing keeping me from abandoning it completely.

Back in March I had a long day at work and my sweetheart was sick so when I got home I made him some dinner I thought he would like. Then I had to watch the US Men’s National Team play Mexico in a World Cup qualifier.

Then I went to bed and when I woke up at 1:30am I realized I’d never done even one little thing. My rules for the streak were pretty relaxed but I hadn’t even fulfilled the very minimum to check off the box. So good. I don’t have to keep track of that any more.

Posted in doing it wrong | Tagged | 1 Comment

Everything is Crappy

Posted on June 8, 2013 by Pamela

Last week Bob bought Cracker Jack at the game.

I used to love Cracker Jack. Remember when it came in a cardboard box? And had a little toy in it? And actual peanuts?

This was a $3 bag of disappointment.

I guessed Fox Mulder.

Yeah, sure the toys were stupid but now it isn’t even a toy. It was this little piece of folded paper. Why bother? And instead of peanuts, there were peanut shards. Bob and I had to fight over all three of them.

Posted in doing it wrong | 2 Comments

We Have Shower Door

Posted on June 6, 2013 by Pamela

I spent a crazy amount of time seeing if I could do this from my iPhone. Not yet, which is probably a good thing.

How many shower doors do you see? If you see, two, you’re seeing what I’m seeing. There will be some epic showering going on this weekend. I even have coconut scented bath wash to celebrate.

Posted in doing it wrong | 2 Comments

Bob’s Favorite Shirt

Posted on June 2, 2013 by Pamela

This is Bob’s favorite shirt.

You can tell it’s been his favorite shirt for quite some time.

I think 2 years ago, at Christmas, I looked around online to see if I could find a replacement.

Instead I bought him a bale of Eddie Bauer long sleeved t-shirts – which he loved – but this one is going nowhere.

Even he admits that it’s pretty bad, but it’s his favorite. Can’t argue with that.

Posted in doing it wrong | 1 Comment